"Understanding Intelligent Design: Everything You Need to Know in Plain Language" is a brief (sometimes too brief) review of the evidence for Intelligent Design (ID) written for general audiences. In this goal it succeeds marvelously. Easy to follow, well written and well documented, given the length limits of the book. Chapter 5, a response to arguments against ID, was especially helpful. The authors correctly point out that the claim ID is not science is irresponsible for many reasons. One was especially persuasive, namely because almost every single scientist and naturalist from Aristotle, to Plato to the founders of modern science were all creationists or ID advocates. Actually, until Darwin most all scientists were some type of creationist and many were for some time after. This includes Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, Michael Faraday and the founders of just about every branch of modern science. It was actually only in the last century that this changed.

Now, of the leading biological scientists, fully 98 percent are functional atheists, according to a study done by Gregory Graffin PhD completed when he was at Cornell University. What changed this? As Graffin makes clear, it was Darwinism who allowed scientists to be, in Richard Dawkin's words, "intellectually fulfilled atheists." Nigel Williams was even more blunt, writing that Darwin "destroyed the strongest evidence left in the nineteenth century for the existence of a deity." Dr. Ayala explains why evolution rules out theism, namely because they are incompatible, and that "Darwin's greatest contribution to science" is that he led the way to prove that natural law alone can create all that exists, and no need exists for an intelligent creator because "organisms could now be explained ... as the result of natural processes, without recourse to an Intelligent Designer." Is the evidence for Darwinism persuasive? This book at the least casts doubt on the theory that "destroyed the strongest evidence left in the nineteenth century for the existence of a deity."